The glare across the lake’s surface drew her forth, and the translucent water offered a refreshing and welcoming view into its depths. Being on the tail end of a snowstorm, the clouds merely gently sprinkled white powder across the shoreline while the sun began to nudge them out of its way to announce its return to the sky. The girl poked a finger into the still water, lightly disrupting the peace with tiny ripples.

“Why can’t I grow up to be a fish?” she asked the water, mindlessly swirling her finger, causing a greater disturbance.

“Because you would be stuck under a sheet of ice every February,” interjected a short-haired individual standing behind her. 

While storytellers have written countless stories about fish people, the girl still had no privilege to participate in any of them. So she took in a sharp breath of cold air with a sigh.

“I guess, then, you require me to search for a new thing to obsess over now that my dreams have been crushed?”

They only shrugged in response. The girl’s head swirled with images of underwater adventures, and a pounding headache swept through her. She wondered why everyone said time outdoors was supposed to clear your head.

She sat backward into a powdery snowbank, soaking her Forever 21 Hello Kitty snowsuit with snow melted by her body heat. The chill of the ground crept up her back because her outfit was not made for the elements, only a display of vanity and consumerist loyalty to the Sanrio franchise. The absorbent fabric reflected the blinding sunlight, causing her to blend in with the snow.

Thoughts passed slower than minutes until she broke the silence, whining, “Why won’t you sit with me?” 

The individual replied, “The ground is wet, and neither of us dressed properly for this walk.”

She considered retreating to the warmth of home, but there would be no warmth until her mother returned from work. While fish swam in schools, unfortunately, humans seemed to believe in the normalcy of solitude. She rolled over in the snow, and with her backside soaked, she suddenly realized that she did not like being wet. The scales of a fish provide protection and would have allowed the chill of the wetness to roll right off her back. 

The sun began to set from behind the clouds, sending rays of orange light across the lake like the stripes of a koi fish, enticing the girl towards the beams of color. She felt a gentle hand on her back.

“Child, the water is an obstacle to be overcome, not a friend to be made,” she heard behind her. However, when she whipped her head around to argue, nobody was there but a gust of wind. Lacking any guilt over disobeying the individual, the girl darted towards the water. She sliced through the surface, waterlogging her snowsuit, sending her ever faster toward the murky bottom as if the lake was calling her.

Finally, she was alone with the fish — with her people. Water filled her lungs until she felt like she could breathe again. She wanted to be one with the fish. And so she was — forever young and feeding the plants.